The Protoss Thread

[imolin]

@FX

its always good to keep a few pylons at the perimeter of your base so you can see incoming drops and have a few more seconds to react. It also helsp to have control of the watch towers/have an observer over his army etc.

Cannons are an OK response, but you dont want to overmake cannons. if a terran drops once and you decide to make 5-6 cannons, he doesnt have to even try any more, hes ahead already. just work on responding to it with a few stalkers (: and seeing it before they're attacking your nexus

also if youre on two bases+ you should have enough production to just warp in extra units at your base if youre already moving out with your army (:, or if that would be faster than bringing back units

[ItalianFX]

The whole game from my side was a mess. It's frustrating when my micro doesn't respond like I want it to.

I kind of feel like I gave up too soon as I could have put up a fight, but lately I've just been tired of trying to hang in games that I clearly don't have a chance to win so I just quit and go to the next game.

The first drop I saw coming because I had one of the towers and saw his medivac go past it. The 2nd he went around the wider side so I didn't see it. The 3rd was the same wide side so I didn't see that one either and the fact that he had like 5 medivacs made me think he was bringing his entire army with him, when in fact, he only had like 1.5 medivacs full and was probably just bringing the extra for extra healing energy.

Just a frustrating game. I hate when I get dropped like that. I just had the feeling like I was really far behind. For some reason I just never had enough minerals even though my main was saturated and my expansion was just about up and running.

So yeah, I just felt like I was really behind, eventhough I wasn't after-the-fact. But whatever. It's just one game I suppose.

I know it doesn't mean anything, but I played against a low level Platinum, which I lost. Then a high level gold (this game) and lost. Then a high level Silver and won. It was the first time I ever played a platinum player. Doesn't mean anything, but I just look at it as reference in that that guy was good enough to make it to platinum, so I'm probably getting close.

[aK13]

Also remember that if you have control of the watchtowers, you will always spot a big attack to your front in time to group your units together. So your only vulnerability will be to drops, and you can move your stalkers to create a perimeter defense against drops. If he ends up attacking your front, you have enough time with vision and force fields to regroup your stalkers with your main army to defend.

[Gospy]

This is probably a better example of the ramp pylon thing.

My 4 gate is a bit late cause I wanted his scouting probe out of my base. The only thing I would do differently is build another pylon up closer to his ledge so I can warp in directly since I already got up half way. I think I actually queued one up but canceled it after I realized that he was pulling back/out of energy.

Also lol at him complaining after he stole my gas, I mean what did he think I was gonna do.

He's 2.8k diamond.

-----

My issues with this build are:

1. The opponent can't take out the pylons fast enough to matter. You only need 1 and 1 will always finish at least.
2. You can warp in up in the ramp progressively and eventually into his base.
3. The only way to stop it is great micro/unit comp or a defensive 4 gate, at least imo.

[TNixon]

Originally Posted by Gospy

He's 2.8k diamond.

Just goes to show that you can play far from perfectly and still get that high IMO.

Mistakes made, some critical, some kinda meh:

Gas steal. (ok, maybe this isn't a mistake, but it makes *no* sense to me in pvp, and delays everything else by quite a bit)
Second gateway was signifcantly late.
Fourth pylon was *ridiculously* late. Which ended up not mattering a whole lot cause the second gateway was late.
Robo was a *little* late. (frankly, if you're going to build a robo, I think it's much better to go gate-robo-gate than gate-gate-robo)
No scouting. At all. Period. I guess he was relying on the gas steal for scouting?
A sentry was queued at one gateway just as warpgate research was about to finish.
Starting a trust fund instead of keeping his gateways producing, 300 unspent minerals (and a gateway that hasn't done *anything* yet!!!) at 6:30
Building an extra pylon at 38/50 instead of starting a third gateway
Too many sentries, not enough stalkers
No attempt whatsoever to let you get units up the ramp and pick them off.
Building a fourth gateway *and* building an immortal. If he's going to use the robo (and he should, IMO), the 4th gate is a complete waste of money.
Spending so many forcefields not doing anything but delaying that by the time the critical moment comes, he has no energy *and* he's even more down on units than he's supposed to be.
SUPERLOL forcefield at 7:50.

The biggest thing obviously is the trustfund. His macro was really really bad very early when there are very few reasons that you shouldn't be damn-near-perfect. When you got up the ramp at 7:40, he was *way* further behind unit-wise than he should have been. It was 9 zealots and 6 stalkers vs 2 zealots, 1 stalker, and 3 sentries. You had well over double the amount of resources invested in your army. I don't think that's really typical that early.

Second thing is that he built almost all sentries but didn't make good use of the forcefields, and didn't have enough stalkers to make really good use of them anyway. Using the forcefields to delay isn't enough, because it's going to take a *long* time to pull ahead in production. You have to do something to even the score. Picking off an extra 3-4 units, which should be totally possible, is probably enough.

The previous game you posted was a much better example IMO. That person did far more things right than this one did. This one I'd guess hit 2.8k purely by sheer volume of games, and honestly if you're going to say things like it's unstoppable without great micro, then you have to at least show a game where the defender didn't make tons of *huge* mistakes IMO.

[TNixon]

Originally Posted by Gospy

My issues with this build are:

1. The opponent can't take out the pylons fast enough to matter. You only need 1 and 1 will always finish at least.
2. You can warp in up in the ramp progressively and eventually into his base.
3. The only way to stop it is great micro/unit comp or a defensive 4 gate, at least imo.

Btw, I don't have great micro, and unit composition is really limited early anyway so I'm not sure what you mean by "great unit comp", but I'd be willing to run some practice games if you want.

Just don't make me be the 4gater, cause I'm not particularly good at it. Been playing way more 2v2 than 1v1 lately, and I practically never 4gate in 2v2.

Running some quick tests of gate-gate-robo-gate to see what you can have by 7:40 should easily show he was way behind where he should have been though.

[Gospy]

I meant it was better in terms of using the pylon to warp up the ramp. I think it's a more clear example of what I was talking about. Just, you know, getting up the ramp even when he ff.

To be honest I'm gonna keep my units back, he'll never have a chance to pick them off. The only time I move up is when I'm ready to attack his sentries. At which point I send 1 zealot to the mineral line and the other 3 at his forces. I don't see how he can pick off "3-4" units with his crap unit comp. Sentries don't deal enough damage.

I'm not saying he played well I'm just saying you can take two things from that.

1. You need two forcefields to stop it.
2. Making immortals and sentries is gg. (At least more often that a defensive 4 gate)

I lost like 2 units in the whole game.

----

A good 4 gate hits before 6 min. We can mess around with it if you want.

By unit comp I guess I mean balance. If you have 1 zealot you are screwed. If you have all zealots you are screwed. That's all I really mean.

[TNixon]

Originally Posted by Gospy

I meant it was better in terms of using the pylon to warp up the ramp. I think it's a more clear example of what I was talking about. Just, you know, getting up the ramp even when he ff.

Oh yeah. I'm definitely not arguing that they can keep you from getting up the ramp forever. The key is to do enough damage before that happens imo.

To be honest I'm gonna keep my units back, he'll never have a chance to pick them off. The only time I move up is when I'm ready to attack his sentries.

If you're not coming up the ramp, then he shouldn't be wasting FF energy. When you do, he should cut units off, and if he's not *all* sentry (which was bad, as I already mentioned), then he'll be able to pick off whatever gets trapped.

1. You need two forcefields to stop it.

Ok? I don't understand why this is a problem. The goal is not to keep them from getting up the ramp *ever*. That's not reasonable. The goal is to delay long enough, and do enough damage, that you're not ****ed when they do finally get up the ramp.

2. Making immortals and sentries is gg.

This game doesn't show that imo. All it shows is that being *way* behind where you should be on unit production by having ridicubad macro, and *overproducing* sentries is gg (more than 3 is certainly too many, 3 is *probably* too many).

A good 4 gate hits before 6 min. We can mess around with it if you want.

7:40 was when you got up the ramp. Up to the point where you get up the ramp, an army imbalance doesn't matter as much, as long as you have enough stalkers to take potshots at trapped units.

[Gospy]

The time at which I finally get up is a function of what units he chooses. So saying that I got up later means that he chose units that are not good against picking off warped up units.

[TNixon]

Originally Posted by Gospy

The time at which I finally get up is a function of what units he chooses. So saying that I got up later means that he chose units that are not good against picking off warped up units.

True enough. It only took that long because he way overproduced sentries, and was using them poorly. (I thought 3 was the magic number for never-ending forcefields with perfect timing?)

If his first 6 units are 2 sentries, 3 stalkers, and a zealot though, rather than 5 sentries and one stalker, you're going to get up the ramp faster, but you will have lost some units before getting up.

Also, you just really can't ignore the really bad macro. Had you not said anything, I would have placed this guy in high gold/low plat *at best* because his early game was so bad. His unit composition was bad, but his production was way worse.

[Gospy]

Can you get those units that fast? I'm not sure if it's possible. Also, I don't think 3 sentries is enough, but maybe. I think it's probably pretty bad if he runs out of ff. But if you have 3+ sentries you can't do much damage. I dunno, I gotta think about it.

I know he sucked in that game, but I don't think he's that bad. I looked up some of his other bo's.

[cwar]

I think its pretty much accepted now gate-robo some number of gates vs a fast 4 gate is a BO loss almost no matter what.

[AKSpartan]

How do you deal with heavy banshee harassment? I just had the most enraging game of maybe any video game I've ever played in my life, playing against this on close air Metalopolis. He built his first CC quickly and threw bunkers down in his choke to defend with his MM and constantly was attacking my main mineral line / my expansion with cloaked banshees. I got some cannons down but they didn't help much and he was able to find other areas of my base to pick off and kept destroying my 3rd. Observers are extremely slow, as is my army moving back and forth between bases. This after losing to a turtling protoss who went forge>DT and caused me a lot of trouble. Banshees are a million times worse. I want something to ****ing punch.

[Gospy]

Against dual port banshee you're well served to get a couple Phoenixes. Stalkers barely beat banshees 1v1.

[ItalianFX]

Welcome to Gold! haha jk. Congrats.